


Confusion Never Stops (Closing Walls and Ticking Clocks)

by passtheblame



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, Discipline, Dubious Consent, F/M, Frottage, Incest, Parent/Child Incest, Punishment, Spanking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-02
Updated: 2017-03-29
Packaged: 2018-02-11 11:03:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2065704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/passtheblame/pseuds/passtheblame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Henry is eighteen now and is under the misguided notion that it's alright for him to continue the charade of disrespecting his mother. </p><p>Regina teaches him that it's not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ticking Clocks

**Author's Note:**

> AN: Passing the blame to: askandiwilllie, secretsillnevertell and thisisyourfaultiblameyou.  
> ...And also eviltaste for giving me an affinity for arsehole!Henry.  
> If I get positive feedback here, I may continue to write further chapters (but they’ll likely be very delayed as the result of my university workload). Thanks to Secrets for being my beta! x  
> Side note: I've never written smut before. Please be gentle with me?

_Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock._

Seconds turn to minutes and minutes turn to hours as Regina’s sight burns with the image of the clock she’s been staring at as she waits for Henry to arrive home. Fingers tap sporadically against the marble of her desk and nostrils flare as an endless list of possibilities run through her mind as to why Henry isn’t back yet.

A loud bang from the hall interrupts her thoughts and causes her to jump up, moving quickly to the front of the house where cold and unapologetic green eyes greet hers. She returns his gaze with her own stoned glare, challenging him to break the deafening silence enveloping the front of the house.

_Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock._

As they both stubbornly stand their ground, there is no denying that he is her child and for a fleeting moment Regina lets herself wonder where she had gone wrong.

Letting out a huff of air from his nostrils, Henry is the first to break contact as he strides towards the staircase, but Regina beats him there and blocks his path, eyes boring into his again as if she expects an explanation for his breaking curfew. “Well?” she questions in a demanding tone. Henry rolls his eyes and forcefully pushes her aside to begin his ascent up the stairs. Regina lets a noise of anger escape her throat as one hand clenches into a fist at her side and the other tightly grips the railing as she spins herself towards him.

“Where have you been?” she exclaims, rage easily brought to the surface after hours of slowly brewing earlier when she had been waiting for him.

Henry clenches his jaw and pauses with both feet on one step before turning to look down at his mother. If he lets himself search her eyes for too long, he would have to confront the fact that amidst the fire was a tinge of concern, so he chooses to look her over from head to toe instead.

When he was little this might have frightened him, put him in his place and he’d be telling her how apologetic he was and promising never to disobey her again, but he wasn’t a child anymore. He was eighteen, an adult, and her curfews were not above him and from this position on the stairwell, she wasn’t either.

From this angle it dawns on him just how small she is. What has become of the infamous Evil Queen? What cheap imitation now stood in her place, face stern and expectant? A part of him wants to grab her shoulders and shake her, provoke her to bite back harder, draw the magic out of her, let him see any reason as to why the woman in the stories he’s read was so feared because this – whoever she pretended she could be here – was merely an act. Mothers don’t let their sons believe they’re crazy, don’t lie to them their entire lives, don’t trap them in cursed towns where every day loops and nobody ages until his mother – his _real mother_ – comes along to change things.

He doesn’t realise how long he’s been thinking for until he looks back up to her face, fallen in what he might misinterpret as worry if he didn’t know any better. He can feel his own face burning along with his eyes and there’s an infuriating ticking in his head and all he wants to do is grab the clock from the wall and hurl it across the foyer.

“What does it matter?” he steadies his voice almost calmly and it makes Regina shiver at the contrast to his expression.

Her tone decreases in volume, cautious not to aggravate him further. “It matters because you have a curfew, which you broke.”

“Rules are made to be broken,” he retorts simply.

“Rules are put in place to protect you, _honey_.” She bites out the last word with more strength than she intended, her impatience never far away from rearing its ugly head. “That’s what mothers do for their children.”

Henry can’t help but laugh at that. “Some mother you’ve been, then.”

Regina’s mouth falls open briefly before she shuts it quickly, renewed anger causing her to take a step up the stairs. She thinks for a moment about what she should say next before, “You know that’s no way to speak to your mother, Henry.” A long pause passes and she takes another threatening step towards him. “Perhaps I should have disciplined you more.”

And maybe it’s because she’s getting closer now, but suddenly Henry doesn’t think she looks so small anymore and he swallows thickly, frozen in place.

The persistent sound of ticking punctuates Regina’s next two steps and there’s a menacing twinkle in her eyes now and Henry feels like prey as his breathing becomes heavy and his leg wobbles unsurely as he goes to take a step back.

It seems the Evil Queen would like to take back her throne now.

 _About time_.

The two continue ascending the staircase this way, stepping simultaneously until Henry’s hand begins to shake as he runs out of railing and he stumbles onto the first floor landing before bolting towards his bedroom.

Once inside, he slams the door shut behind him and rests his back on it, letting out a heavy sigh in the false safety of his room. Before his mind can register what’s happening, purple swirls are forming and his mother appears standing in front of him with a terrifyingly wide smile lining her features that doesn’t meet her eyes. Maybe he had pushed too far this time.

Fear grips his heart and squeezes and for a second he wonders what that would feel like – if she were to reach into his chest and tighten her hand around his heart – but the thought washes away when he remembers that she enchanted his heart so that nobody could take it after she saved him from Peter Pan.

It dawns on him suddenly how, that’s right, she _did_ save him, more than once, and he feels another pulling at his heart now, one akin to what might be guilt.

“I’m sorry.” It’s a pained whisper and he feels so much like the child he’s always been, the baby boy always screwing things up and hurting his mother for kicks. He feels like telling her what he’s sorry for – both everything and nothing at once – but this isn’t the time or place for it, and he has finally overstepped the line.

He’s taller than she is even in her heels as she paces agonisingly slow towards him, but he still gulps when she reaches her destination and leans into him, voice low and breath hot against his ear as she hums, “Oh, but you will be, sweetheart.”

With that she yanks him from the door, making him cry out as they awkwardly trip backwards and onto Henry’s bed that looks far too young and tiny for him. It seems fitting for what’s to come.

In one swift motion Regina has a resistant Henry pushed over her lap, fingers working at the waistband of his jeans and pulling them down just enough to expose pale cheeks.

“Mum! What are you do-” his question is cut off as he yelps in surprise as his mother’s hand connects with his arse for the first time.

“Shhh.” She hushes him quietly. “I’m disciplining you, dear.”

Another slap comes down on his bare flesh, hardly enough to hurt, but tears sting his eyes regardless from the pure humiliation of it.

Regina’s hand is reared back further as she increases the level of punishment dealt to her son. Henry’s skin takes on a light pink hue now, paling in comparison to his face and his jaw hurts from how desperately he’s been trying to contain his cries.

“I’m sorry!” Henry tries again more desperately, but is ignored as another smack resounds in his ears.

After several more spanks collide against his heated flesh in quick succession, Regina’s hand stills for a moment on one of his cheeks and she begins rubbing there, soothing the inflamed skin. Against his better judgment, Henry relaxes into the touch, wiggling his arse higher into the air.

Mother and son’s eyes widen in unison and Regina stops her ministrations as they both feel a bulge sprouting in Henry’s pants.

After her initial shock, Regina’s lips start to curl in a cruel smirk as her gaze falls back to rounded buttocks.

“Are you hard?” She laughs in amusement as she asks the question, and Henry’s silence is affirming enough for her. Her tone becomes more serious now, purring to him, “Does mummy punishing you make the blood rush to your cock?”

To that, Henry groans in both arousal and discomfort as he wriggles slightly under her hand and Regina licks her lips. He’s thankful that she can’t see his face from this position, shame washing over him like a tsunami.

“Well, at least now I know why you’ve been acting out against me all these years.” Another sharp slap lands on him and his teeth sink into his bottom lip as he hisses. “It’s because you _want_ me to punish you, don’t you? You _like_ it.”

“No!” Henry immediately argues despite hard evidence that would appear to suggest otherwise.

She brings her hand back again, hitting him harder than the previous times and relishing in the way he whimpers.

“Good little boys don’t tell lies, dear.”

The clock in the room ticks in a tempo shared with the next few blows Regina delivers to her son’s backside and Henry is starting to tremble and trying to convince himself that it’s from the torture of the building pain and nothing to do with a need to have his mother’s hand move further around his waist and down his boxers.

Regina can feel his frustration and in some ironic motherly instinct to help him when he’s distressed, she tugs his jeans down further, causing him to sigh in relief as his erection springs free and rests over her legs. In her short dress she can feel his length pressing against the smooth skin of her thighs and she shudders involuntarily, a warm feeling in her lower stomach beginning to stir that she pretends not to notice.

Henry starts to rub himself against his mother, rocking his hips back and forth to alleviate some of the pressure. She squeezes both of his cheeks harshly in reprimand and it has him groaning again.

Raking her nails over his arse causes temporary white lines to run through angry red skin and Henry’s hips jerk in response to the action. He almost begs for her to just grip him and put him out of his misery already, cross that line and deal with the repercussions of it later, but before he can degrade his dignity any further Regina rears her hand back and it lands with a final punishing blow over both his cheeks, fresh tears springing to his eyes as a shrill scream is pulled from his throat.

It’s over more quickly than it begun and Regina hums above him as she gently rubs a hand over scorching cheeks and the dip in his back, looking down and satisfied with her work until she feels Henry’s manhood twitch against her and sticky pre-cum dribbling over her leg.

Her body stills and becomes rigid and neither of them dare to make a sound. The only indication either one has that time hasn’t completely stopped around them is the infernal noise of ticking.

When Regina regains movement, she gently rolls Henry off of her and onto his back, his body flushed and his erection standing at full attention. A stunned silence sweeps over her as she is pulled back to reality and stands on legs that feel too weak to be hers, facing away from her son.

She looks down at her hands in shock, slowly studying them one after the other, shaking as she rushes out of her son’s room.

Henry stares at the ceiling and waits to hear the door shut before he strokes himself to climax, and all he can think about in his daze is how his mother – the _queen_ – had just spanked him for his misbehaviour and left him aching and sore.

Regina kicks off her shoes and lunges into her bed, not bothering to change out of her clothes, and pulls the covers up to her chin, mind too numb as she speaks softly to the night, “I’m sorry too.”

The clock on her bedside table blurs her vision after she’s been staring at it for too long.

Seconds turn to minutes and minutes turn to hours, but what happened tonight will last a lifetime.

_Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock._


	2. Reflections

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Passing the blame to: everybody who said I should have multi-chapters to this story (you only have yourselves to blame if you don’t like it from here on out x). I’m also a ridiculous lover of themes and repeated phrases... if you hadn’t figured that one out by now. Thisisyourfaultiblameyou has a lot to do with that obsession.

She’s in a dream. No, it’s a nightmare.

No, wrong again, it’s something much worse than that – a _memory_ – a haunting recollection of when she pushed her mother through a looking glass that reflected an enraged daughter before shattering into a thousand glittering fragments in its aftermath. The same mother she tore away from at the fragile age of eighteen – her son’s age.

She remembers frantically inspecting gloved hands afterwards, hands that had to have belonged to her but surely couldn’t have. Because she was good. Or at least, she wasn’t evil. _Was she?_ She would never intentionally hurt anyone. _Would she?_

But she _had_ , and she had committed the same offense last night, against _her_ _own son._

A splitting headache pounds in her ears but doesn’t help to drown out the memories of anything she’d done, recent or in a past life, and her hands tingle unpleasantly at her thoughts as she languidly rolls over to open a drawer on her bedside table and retrieves two small pills.

She throws her head back and swallows thickly as they slide down her throat. Tablets were her most favoured invention of this world, though she had soon discovered that they too were unable to mend the abysmal cracks in her life.

Regina groans as she wills her body to sit up, sluggishly rubbing a hand over her furrowed brow as she tries to focus on her surroundings. She is vaguely aware of a white substance staining the hem of her dress, and it takes all of her energy not to fall back on the plush bed and never get up again. Curling up into a ball and laying down to die would be a far more endurable fate than whatever awaited her downstairs.

With a deep breath, or perhaps it was a sigh, she kicks off her heels and stands as she makes her way over to the ensuite. The scalding water from the showerhead doesn’t permit her to feel any less dirty as it cascades over her smooth skin and down the drain. She closes her eyes in an attempt to shut out the rest of humanity, but as she does, images filter through her mind of handprints and the way Henry felt rocking himself against her uncovered flesh.

Gasping and eyes snapping open, she hurriedly turns off the spray and dries herself. She doesn’t look at herself as she passes by the mirror standing freely a few feet away from her bed, because she is not herself lately. Instead, she grabs a sheet from her bed and drapes it over the oval-shaped glass as she dresses herself for the day.

Leaning her weight along the front of her dresser, she picks up some of the expensive used make-up products scattered on its surface and starts to apply them to her face without anything to see herself with. She smacks her lips together with a soft pop and takes another deep breath before turning and exiting her room.

When she gets to the foot of the stairs, she hears someone slamming cupboards and slightly winces, taking a moment to steady herself against the railing before making her descent.

Upon entering the kitchen, the loud banging noises echoing off the walls suddenly halt.

Out of the corner of her eye, she can see _him_ standing there, unmoving as she straightens herself but avoids eye contact.

Hesitantly, Regina goes around the other side of the kitchen island and makes her way to the sink to fill a glass of water to help calm herself.

“You look like shit,” he informs her pointedly, curling his lip in a snarl that she doesn’t see and moving back to take his seat behind the counter.

She purses her lips before looking down at the stainless steel tap of the sink. Studying her warped reflection, she wipes a thumb over a red smudge of her lipstick while huffing air out her nose and slumping her shoulders in resignation.

Spinning around slowly, her sight falls to the middle of the room where she notices the contents on the bench for the first time. Two plates of bacon and eggs and tall glasses of orange juice sit opposite each other and Regina walks uncertainly to take a seat.

She has no reason to feel anxious – everything appears the same as it usually is.

Except it’s not.

And they both know it, can feel the air thicker than usual as a strained silence weighs down heavily on them.

Only now does Regina raise her eyes to meet his, the green orbs piercing back at her and never relenting in their unspoken challenge.

Mother and son pick up their drinks and take unhurried sips in unison, placing them back down on the counter together. It’s like gazing into a mirror, the way they unintentionally mimic one another in their movements. Regina is the first to draw her eyes away from his, shifting uncomfortably as Henry smiles smugly in his victory.

She looks up at the clock on the wall to her left and her eye twitches.

Henry observes the grimace she gives and makes a mental note to buy a watch to wear around her.

He takes a bite from his bacon and crunches slowly, studying her again, planning what to say.

“So,” he begins but pauses until he has her reluctant attention.

She turns her head and glares at him.

“How did it feel?” he asks in faux curiosity, but there’s something cruel laced through the undercurrents of his tone.

“How did _what_ feel?” she practically spits back at him, tired of things always having to be so unclear during their encounters.

“How did it feel when the _Evil Queen_ returned?” He says it in a dark, mocking whisper and Regina’s breath hitches.

In her stunned lack of response, Henry sees an opportunity to continue goading her. “You know, _maybe_ if you didn’t scare away all the men your age, you wouldn’t have to take out your desires on your own _son_ ,” he ridiculed, and Henry could pinpoint the exact moment his mother’s face clouded over in a burning darkness.

Despite an absence of regal attire, her sturdy mask slips back over her face perfectly.

“ _Maybe_ if I hadn’t raised such an _insolent child_ , I wouldn’t have had to resort to physical discipline.”

“ _Mothers_ don’t spank their eighteen year old _sons_ ,” he’s quick to retort in his ceaseless hatred, always itching with a constant need to point out that she’s the villain of their little story.

She stands up slowly, never taking her eyes from his as she leisurely makes her way around the kitchen island, dragging her nails too gently across its surface.

“Some _sons_ need reminding of their _hierarchy_ ,” she says it as if she’s reciting something scholarly as she paces closer to where Henry is cautiously rising from his seat.

Her heels clink audibly against the marble tiles and it sends a warm shiver down Henry’s spine.

“You shouldn’t provoke me, dear,” she warns threateningly.

Henry has fully risen to his feet now, chin turned up in defiance but still gripping the counter firmly for support. “Or what, you’ll _spank me_ again, _mum_? Or do you prefer ‘ _Your Majesty_ ’?”

She cries out as she brings her hand up to slap him but he catches her hand forcefully before it connects with his face.

They stay staring at one another for a long moment, Henry’s grip tight enough to bruise and faces inches apart with matching expressions of frustration and disdain.

He leans in abruptly, colliding their mouths and teeth together harshly in a battle for dominance, and Regina returns the challenge by biting down and pulling at his bottom lip, smirking wickedly as he jerks his head back from hers and runs his tongue across the marks.

“You’re misbehaving,” she points out, pulling her hand from his grasp. “Do I need to punish you again? Do you _want_ me to?” She raises an eyebrow with menacing glee at the question, eyes dark as night as they glisten deviously into his.

Henry looks away sheepishly as a blush travels up his neck, while Regina’s own gaze ventures lower, taking one small step to close the gap between their bodies and trailing a hand down to the soft fabric of his pants.

She moves her face beside his, whispering hotly as her nails softly trace the outline of him through his pants. “Is _this_ what you want? You want me to _touch_ you… _here_?” she asks as she gives a light squeeze through the thin material, nipping at his earlobe as his hips jerk in response and he fails to bite back a groan in time.

His mother chuckles darkly against him as she peppers light kisses down his neck. “Mummy punishing you makes you hard, doesn’t it?” He groans again and she smiles as it vibrates through her lips. “Tell me, did you take care of yourself after I left last night? Did you get off on the thought of your mother spanking you?” she flicks her tongue out over his skin and sucks gently.

“ _Yes_ ,” his voice quivers, and he can feel her smile widen at his admission.

Regina hums against him, bringing her lips around to hover in front of his. “ _Naughty_ ,” is all she manages to say before he desperately reclaims her mouth, and she lets him, applying more pressure to where she’s groping him through the cloth and breathing in his moan.

The need to regain possession of him has her continuing to rub the bulge of her son’s cock through his pants as he rolls his hips frantically against her hand, and she brings her free hand to the back of his head, threading her fingers through his hair as she tugs him back from her mouth.

“So _needy_ for your _mother_ ,” Regina taunts him and he growls as he spins her around and pins her against the counter hard enough to crack its foundations, hips rocking into her thigh. The unexpected force has her eyes widening in shock before her eyelids flutter and her head falls back, moaning as Henry runs his teeth along the dip where her neck and shoulder meet.

A pathetically embarrassing whimper falls from his mother’s open mouth and he grabs her wrists with the intent to pin them behind her, only to find she’s one step ahead of him as she pushes him back onto the seat with a leg between his.

Sitting down puts him at eye level with her perfect breasts and he burrows his face into the warmth of her cleavage, holding his mother’s hips as he bucks his erection harder against her thigh.

Regina holds Henry against her chest as her focus lands on the mirror behind him.

Her body stills, and Henry notices.

She looks at the reflection offered by the mirror – her son decreasing the speed of his thrusts against her as he feels her body going rigid in its sobriety, her lipstick smudged across her chin and down Henry’s neck, his face still buried in the space between her breasts. The image horrifies her.

Regina feels a wave of nausea overcome her and quickly pulls away from him, rushing out of the room on unsteady feet, losing her heels along the way and climbing the stairs two at a time until she’s behind the door to her bedroom, panting heavily against it and close to tears.

Henry is left downstairs, erection straining against his pants as he clenches his jaw in rage. It’s the second time in as many days that his mother had started something she hadn’t finished. He picks up a knife sitting on a plate of abandoned food and looks at the image of himself bounced back from its surface, nostrils flared and his skin a deep shade of red.

Henry doesn’t bother to finish himself off. Instead, he takes an apple matching the colour of his face and jabs the knife down into it, promising himself there won’t be a third time she leaves him this way.

Upstairs, Regina lets a tormented scream fall out of her system, the pitch high enough to shatter all the mirrors in the house. She waits a moment to hear if any do, but only silence greets her. Only silence _ever_ greets her.

She takes her time steadying herself against the frame of her door, and when she stops shaking she makes her way over to the bathroom to wash her face for much longer than necessary. Wiping her face dry and looking up, she sees herself in the reflection.

She isn’t quite sure who she is right now. She knows she’s Regina Mills, but she’s unable to determine which version of herself she is. The thought terrifies the girl in the mirror, and that girl’s face stays worried and frozen staring at her, while the woman casting the reflection steps away, expression blank as she closes the door, locking the girl inside her bathroom while she herself crawls back into her bed.

She closes her eyes and tries to forget about her morning, but the ticking in the room was designed to spite her. She reasons with herself before falling back asleep that next time she’ll just stay in bed, and will continue to do so for every day after that.

She’s in a dream. No, it’s a nightmare.

No, wrong again, it’s something much worse than that – a _memory_.


	3. Forgetting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two and a half years isn't exactly what I had in mind when I warned that updates would be 'very delayed'...  
> A good portion of this chapter had been sitting in my drafts for many moons and I decided it was wasteful to leave it unfinished, so here's some angst to complement this fic's angst.  
> I'd like to keep writing but spare time and motivation rarely coincide for me, so we'll see what the future holds.  
> Lastly, thank you for reading and to those who have commented (I do still see them). :)

Forgetting is just forgetting, except when it’s not. Then they call it something else. Henry Mills would like to forget what _she’s_ done, but he can’t.

He had left early the next morning, needing to escape the prison he shared with his mother. The day was cold and dreary overhead, reminding him of a home too large to feel anything but lonely living in. Henry had spent the better half of his day driving around town, turning his nose up as he drove by every corner that held a memory of _her_. Eventually, he found himself parked in front of the town line. 

He closes his eyes, remembering when his mother had sent him away and wishing she had permanently let him forget a life spent under her thumb.

A clap of thunder pulls him from his thoughts, and when he opens his eyes he notices his face has become as wet as the ground outside and that he is sitting in pitch darkness. He sighs heavily and shakes his head before starting the car again and taking the long route home, the sound of rain swirling around with the rest of the chaos in his head.

 

The howling wind can be heard faintly from where Regina Mills tries futilely to soak away her worries in a bathtub fit for a queen. She gently closes her eyes and lulls her head back against the cool marble. With the rain patting hard against the windows, she fails to hear the bang against the wall the door to her bedroom makes as it is flung open.

Henry barges into Regina’s room, ready to unleash pent up frustration that had been building for the past few days. He glances around the shadowed room only to find that it is empty, though a crack of yellow light shines from beneath the door to the bathroom. Henry calms his breathing as a thought occurs to him.

His mother was on the other side of that door, likely unclothed. A smirk rises on his lips at the thought as he lingers towards the source of light. Henry slowly pushes the door open and peeks inside.

Regina’s arms are resting either side of the bathtub, her chest rising and falling gently above the water, sitting with her slender legs stretched out. She looks peaceful. Henry makes it his mission to soon change that injustice.

He carefully closes the door behind him and stalks his way to where his mother rests, yet to notice his presence. Henry’s hands trace lightly over the surface of the tub before finding purchase behind his mother, his green eyes burning into her soaking flesh as they intently roam submerged curves.

 _Perhaps_ if he were any other person he could will himself to admire her beauty, flawed with age and scars from a childhood he can only imagine was filled with as much simmering contempt as his own had been. But he is not another person. He is the son of the woman unknowingly bared before him, a monster hiding behind skin as soft as petals.

Without so much as a rustle of clothing, Henry pulls his shirt over his body and places it on the counter beside them before leaning down to Regina’s level, the balls of his feet on the cool tile beneath them and knees resting on either side of the white fiberglass. Kneeling before the remnants of a queen would be beneath him.

His hands reach towards her shoulders as he breathes in the scent of her body wash. _Apples_. Sickly sweet. There’s a hint of a smile at her lips, a calmness Henry thinks he hasn’t even seen on nights he finds her fallen asleep on the couch.

Henry holds his breath, peering down at the expanse of her body as he brings his mouth next to his mother’s ear, whispering, “You’re so pretty.”

Regina’s eyes shoot open as she inhales breath so quickly her lungs sting, the sudden turning of her body causing warm water to spill over the sides of the tub, splashing Henry’s chest and soaking through his jeans as she witnesses him rising from where he had been positioned over her.

Noticing that Henry was gazing intently over her habitually caused Regina to return the gesture, studying the soft muscles of his exposed skin and the light traces of hair that led from his stomach downward, her heart rate increasing before apparently becoming aware of her own lack of fabric to cover her body.

She hurriedly pulls herself out of the water and grabs her towel from the counter, wrapping the white piece of cloth around herself and cheeks reddening as she eyes her son with caution.

The silence is filled by the sound of strong wind howling outside and harsh rain beating down on the bathroom window, neither one of them moving until Henry makes the decision to be more daring, taking a step towards his mother.

Regina tenses.

Henry smirks.

“What’s wrong, didn’t you like my compliment?” he asks, features shifting to poorly mimic concern. “I figured you would, given how many men you’ve commanded to praise you at your feet.”

Regina only continues to stare at him as he inches closer towards where her feet feel cemented to the floor, her thick swallow audible above the storm.

“Henry,” she intended to sternly warn him, but her voice comes out as broken as their relationship was as she takes an unsteady step backwards.

“Yes, Regina?”

She gulps again at his use of her first name, not having heard him verbally disengage who she was as his mother from some person otherwise unconnected to him since he was a child.

Regina’s eye flicker to where Henry’s hands have manoeuvred to his waist, eyes bulging in her skull as she watches him slowly unbuckling his belt and pulling it through the loops in his jeans. The sound of metal crashing to the tiles as Henry throws the belt away startles Regina and in a moment she is transported away via a cloud of purple.

When she opens her eyes she notices she is in her bedroom, shoulders slumping at how ineffective her display had been as the sliver of golden light cast from the bathroom widens on the wall in front of her.

Rejecting the opportunity to repeat having her sight linger over him, Regina spins around so that her back is turned to the bathroom. Her sight instead focuses on the bedroom mirror that is still covered, and the way the en suite’s light casts Henry’s shadow against it.

He stalks towards her, not deterred by her refusal to look at him and wondering if the shame of all that she has done to him has finally consumed her after all these years. Halting just behind her, he discards his jeans, throwing them past her and delighting in the shudder he watches roll over her shoulders and down her back as the faded material inelegantly lands on the bed.

Large hands brush each side of her hips and Regina inhales deeply as the heat of his front rests against her back, rendering her defenceless to the confirmation that her little prince is doubtlessly no longer so little.

His hands roam further, thumbs circling her hipbones through the towel that keeps her hidden from him. Henry leans in, nose brushing her ear as his lips ghost the stretch of her neck. His voice is raspy as it vibrates into the curve there. “What does it feel like, _mother_? To be so starved of affection that you would turn to using your own son to get it?” It was part question, part accusation as his hands slide lower along her body, dipping beneath her towel to caress the insides of her thighs. 

Regina doesn’t wish to confront whatever reason there may have been to cause her whimper, choosing instead to close her eyes and try to steady her breathing, gently reaching up to hold Henry’s arm. An untrained eye might mistake the pose as an embrace between lovers, but Henry was not blind, and this was not love.

Henry’s hands climb further still, nearly close enough to discover how his proximity affects her. “We may share the space between these walls, but don’t fool yourself − you will always be alone. Queen of _nothing_ ,” he titles her before pulling away, her fingers gliding across his skin causing the hair on his arms to prickle. 

Only once she hears the door slam over a clap of thunder does Regina allow the tears blurring her vision to spill freely, knees weak as she makes her way to her wardrobe and slips into a black dress she recalls having worn the day she told Henry about wanting to redeem herself. She bitterly muses over how apt the attire is for the occasion she has planned.

Regina makes her way downstairs, grabbing a coat and the keys to her black Mercedes before switching on the porch light, stepping outside and shivering despite herself as the night greets her harshly with its powerful wind and biting rain. She fumbles too long with locking the door behind her, wishing to increase the chance that Henry might notice her departure and not suspect where she was really going.

Henry’s peripheral catches sight of a faint light. Pushing himself off his bed, he walks to the window, drawing back the edge of the curtain. His brow furrows as he sees the blur of her leaving the house, the rain continuing to beat down unforgivingly, and he is almost too curious as to where she’s going to envisage it sweeping her away. Not before noting the direction her car takes off in, Henry turns and leans against the wall in contemplation.

Arriving at her destination, Regina makes her way through thick mud to walk down the sturdy steps of her vault, mulling over her decision to swallow a potion she had not conjured in eighteen years, needing to ease the war inside her mind.

Forgetting is just forgetting, except when it’s not. Then they call it something else.


End file.
